


a hurricane from your tongue

by foxgloved



Series: trans!alec [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Canon Gay Character, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Menstruation, Post-Episode: s01e06 Of Men And Angels, Trans Male Character, runes that do not exist in-canon probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 15:51:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6158716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxgloved/pseuds/foxgloved
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Alec doesn't understand enhanced scent runes.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	a hurricane from your tongue

**Author's Note:**

> title from paramore's renegade; tw for mentions of menstruation, as noted. Listen alec & clary as a brotp and also trans boy alec mean a lot to me if no one else is writing this ive got to... & also the magnus thing comes from a text post on tumblr but i didnt rb it and now i cant find it?? oops. idk if this actually fits into canon anywhere

Alec doesn't understand enhanced scent runes. Strength? Yes. Hearing and sight? Yeah, sure, whatever. But he really doesn't need to smell things on his sister's skin still, or the too-strong whiff of perfume from passersby (and his mother) that make spots dance along his vision.

Or the stench of blood wafting from Clary, the nervous glances she keeps throwing around her.

There comes a point where he just-- _can't take it_ anymore, and drags her aside, aware of her protests. He's also aware of the odd looks those surrounding are giving him, but fuck if he doesn't want to ask Clary if she'd gotten hit in front of Jace. Alec knows what he looks like when he gets angry (and also knows that he _would_ get angry, of course he would); his eyebrows scrunch up and his cheeks go dark red and his mouth curls. Once, Alec's stomach had flopped and fluttered at the sight, but the though makes it lurch in a different way now, like he's vaguely ill.

(Maybe he really had drunken too much at Magnus', and it's only catching up to him now-- he'd insisted that he wasn't a lightweight, perhaps too much, and Magnus had lifted his shoulder in a half-shrug as he filled another glass. Either way, Alec had waken on the bloodstained couch with alcohol-clouded memories of the night and a blanket draped over him, and--)

“Are you bleeding?” he blurts, arms folded, once he's in a safe room where Jace will not hear them. Clary's expression shutters with shock, and Alec feels a vague rumble of _confusion-irritation-whatthehellareyoudoing_ (an emotion Alec'd never thought to be one until he'd met Jace) through his parabatai connection, shuddering to a halt as he grinds his palm down atop the rune, gritting his teeth. “I-- enhanced scent rune, I don't know why we have them. If you got hit, we should patch it up--”

“Oh, that's--” Clary's cheeks are flushed, her hands fidgeting at her sides, pulling at her hair; shirt; pants; bag; whatever she can reach, it seems. “No, it's nothing serious, just. Uh... it's kind of a natural thing, I don't think you'd know-- but you have Isabelle--” She stutters a few more indistinguishable words, scrubs her fingers over her face. “Do you get sex ed for another sex in Shadowhunter world? Do you get sex ed at all?”

Alec remembers sex ed-- more specifically, he remembers his father patting him, awkward, on the shoulder and saying _but of course you won't need this until you meet a nice girl to settle down with_. Huh; and he says, “Clary”-- he doesn't mean to call her by her name, he really doesn't-- “just tell me. Or I'll tell Jace.” It's a low warning, and Clary pauses.

“Okay. You know how women, um,” she says, with a vague gesture to her crotch. Alec keeps his eyes on her face, thinking that one eye is twitching. “Anyways. We kind of, well, bleed once a month--”

“ _Oh,”_ Alec says. He remembers-- that, too, blood smeared across his thighs and _make it stop_ and his guts twisting at the sight. (He could fell demons, and yet there he was, ten years old and frozen in the bathroom because he was bleeding from a place he was sure he wasn't supposed to bleed from. He'd thought he was dying, actually.) “Oh. Okay. Do you need pads, or anything--”

“No, I--” Clary is looking at him, with an indecipherable look, eyebrow furrowed and confusion flickering through her gaze. She's twisted her hair free on her shoulder, messy auburn curled into her fingers; and it seems subconscious, how she fiddles with the tips of her hair now. “So you do know about. That.” Her fingers jerk lower, and Alec keeps staring at her face, trying not to blink and smirking when she does.

 _Childish_ , his mother's voice chides in his head. Hell, he's the one putting up with Jace's-- whatever she is, because he knows how that hurts and how it leaks through everything, even more than a stab wound or something. A demon bite.

“Yeah.” Alec shoves his hands in his pockets. He could take the easy way out: sister, mother, girls in general. He's sure Isabelle wouldn't appreciate it, but, well: “I wasn't-- I mean. I know--” He hates words, what the _fuck_. “I-- used to have those, too.”

Clary's frowning, but clarification darts across her gaze and she lets out a soft _Oh_. “You're trans?”

Alec has never heard this term before; he's just thought he's _weird_ , _fucked up_ , whatever you want to call it. (When he blinks he sees Magnus Bane's eyes and they're not multi-colored and gold-flecked and he remembers-- a real smile and kind words that lilted up a bit.) “I guess,” he says, opting to _not_ think about Magnus Bane. At all. He's not sure if it'll work or not.

“Okay,” Clary says, and just that. She seems to remember his earlier question, and shoves her hand into her pocket-- with the addition of a hearing rune, Alec can hear her spiking hearbeat start to relax again. “I-- I mean. Mom burned my entire room, but I still had a few things on me, just in case, since I knew it would be coming around again soon. I-- if you would be okay with just talking about it, that might be nice.” It's an offer; and it's more than just the period thing.

(She'd heard Isabelle's comment about Magnus, after all. And Alec should probably talk about things with someone who is not his sister-- not that he tells her everything, though, either.)

“Sure,” he says, surprising himself with the word, and turns back to the doorway.

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  [.......](npdsolo.tumblr.com)  
> 


End file.
